Welcome to What Matters Now, a new weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.

On Wednesday, stun grenades, tear gas, water cannons and horse-mounted police were deployed against Israelis protesting the judicial overhaul. Images of a wall of citizens of all ages holding Israeli flags, standing defiantly opposite a line of mounted armed law enforcement headlined Israeli media and were seen all over the world.

These images are galvanizing, and to many, terrifyingly indicative of what will follow once the government’s reforms are passed. Because despite the massive protests, according to many experts including The Times of Israel’s senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur, they’re sure to go through.

This became more clear when, on Wednesday night, Israelis who had seen liberal Tel Aviv in turmoil that day, tuned in to primetime news at 8 p.m. to see whether this increased violence and chaos on the streets was a watershed moment. Would it prompt Prime Minister Netanyahu to slow down the judicial overhaul that was rocketing ahead through the Knesset even as tear gas was deployed on Israeli citizens?

Netanyahu, like a father chiding his miscreant children, compared the anti-overhaul protestors, who are stopping traffic and disrupting the nation, to those rampaging Israelis who had torched the Arab village of Huwara on Sunday night.

Netanyahu is clearly determined to charge ahead with the overhaul package — even while parts of Israel are burning. So this week, we ask Rettig Gur, how did we get here and What Matters Now?

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